


How does your garden grow?

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Into the Storm and Rout [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3525296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor worries about the children at Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How does your garden grow?

There are  _children_  at Skyhold.

It sort of makes sense, Katrina supposes, after her terrified shock starts to trickle away. They’ve taken in so many—refugees, soldiers, cooks and stablehands and the list goes on—that some of them are bound to have children, and is there a safer place than this fortress? Out  _there_ , there are rifts and demons and Red Templars, but in here, there’s a garden and a little chapel and civilians to watch over them.

But it doesn’t feel safe enough. Not really. Every tower can fall.

She ducks her head back to her gardening and tries to ignore the group of them, playing a sing-songy game that involves frogs and hand-clapping. The blood lotus is taking well here; Sera will be pleased with that the next time she goes to make her jars filled with bees. Katrina wonders off-handedly if Sera really feels comfortable keeping those things in her pack, where they might smash and get at  _her_. She turns to the next pot, knees aching, only to find one of the little girls standing in front of it.

"You’re the Inquisitor," she says, eyes huge in her face. The others are still playing their game. "I saw them give you that sword."

Katrina puts a finger to her own lips, smiling. “Don’t tell anyone.”

The girl watches her work—the seeds, the dirt, the water. Blood lotus likes a lot of water. “What’re you doing?” the girl asks.

"Trying to get our garden going." Katrina brushes her hands free of dirt. "Want to help?"

She expects the girl to brush her off, run back to her game—she knew plenty of children in the Circle, and very few of them could be expected to sit still and do one thing for longer than a few minutes—but to her surprise, the girl kneels beside her and picks up a handful of seeds. She has a head of dark, curly hair, eyes deeply brown, a pointed little chin.

"I’m Katrina," she says, moving to the next pot. "What’s your name?"

Carefully, the girl folds the seeds into the dirt. “Abigail.”

Katrina pours the water in. “What brings you to Skyhold, Abigail?”

"My da joined up. Ma didn’t want to stay at home, so she cleans now." Abigail pats the dirt down, like she’s done this before. "Is it true you’re a mage? That’s what they say."

She hesitates. “It’s true,” she says slowly.

"You can do anything, then." Abigail looks up at her, little brow furrowed. "You can keep Da safe."

Katrina’s throat closes. She swallows, trying to clear it enough to tell the lie the girl needs to hear, but she sees the bodies in the snow at Haven, feels the heat of the dragon’s breath on her cheek—

A shadow falls over them both. “Hey.”

Abigail doesn’t shriek or squeak or cry out, but she does scramble back, behind Katrina. Katrina startles a little herself, reaching for the staff that she doesn’t even carry inside Skyhold’s walls, but when she looks up, it’s only Bull, grinning down at her.

She lets out a long, low sigh. “It’s alright,” she tells Abigail. “It’s only the Iron Bull.” She shakes her head at him. “You shouldn’t  _sneak_. I almost fried you.”

Abigail peeks out around Katrina’s shoulder, and she can’t help but chuckle at the look on the girl’s face as she follows Bull’s body up—and up—and up. “Are you a dragon?” she asks, sounding at once awed and terrified.

He laughs at that, like she’s genuinely tickled him. “No.”

"But your  _horns_ ,” Abigail insists.

He offers a hand down to help Katrina up. She takes it gratefully—she’s still sore all over, in an abstract sort of way, in the aftermath of their flight from Haven—and he heaves her to her feet.

"Kid was right," he grumbles. "The Iron Dragon  _would_  have been better.”

"I don’t know," Katrina says, sweeping the dirt from her clothes. Her heart beats a little faster for having touched him—for having been touched  _by_  him—but she ignores it. She’s gotten good at that, these past six months. “It doesn’t have the same ring to it as Bull.”

"That so," he says, mouth twitching.

She shrugs. “Just my opinion.”

One of the other children calls for Abigail, and she scampers off with a hurried goodbye. For a moment, Katrina and Bull stand there, watching them play.

"Not a safer place in Thedas right now, boss," he says, voice pitched low.

"Still doesn’t feel safe enough," she mutters. "There were children at Ostwick, too."

He lets her brood a moment longer, but then he says, head tipping toward the garden’s exit, “Come on. Let’s grab a drink.”

She glances down at the pots. “I should really…”

"You should really have a drink." Hand on her shoulder, he gently steers her toward the door. "C’mon, you’ll feel better."

She lets him herd her—away from the sound of the song, away from the seeds taking root. When there’s whiskey burning in her stomach, and Krem’s regaling the table with a tale about spiders and giants, and Bull’s interrupting him every other minute, and she can’t catch her breath for laughing too hard, the unease drips away to a vague prickle, a stone she won’t turn over again until morning.


End file.
